


Her Song

by ad_meliora



Category: Military Wives (2020)
Genre: F/F, Post-Canon, sap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:20:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28449084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ad_meliora/pseuds/ad_meliora
Summary: Lisa has been writing a song for as long as she’s been falling in love with Kate, without even realizing it.
Relationships: Kate Barkley/Lisa Lawson
Comments: 5
Kudos: 8





	Her Song

**Author's Note:**

> This was a writing quickie. I did my best, but definitely didn’t revise it as I normally would...holidays make me lazy.

Home Thoughts from Abroad was the first _real_ song Lisa wrote, but it wasn’t the last and it wasn’t her favorite. It might not have even really been her first. Stuck in between the back pages of her choir notebook, that song was reserved only for herself. 

She started it before Home Thoughts, after the market performance that had failed so dramatically. The melody came to her at the store during a particularly long shift, capped off with an unexpected visit from Kate, looking prim and asking if they had caster sugar. She wanted to bake something for the women to lift their spirits. Lisa had rolled her eyes, but smiled with mirth as she informed Kate that no, they didn’t stock caster sugar, but that the women would still like whatever she was making if it was made with regular sugar (probably).

The lyrics came later, in snippets. 

She thought about the song on the bus after the fight with Kate. She crossed out Kate’s lines, but her mind cycled back to that song in her notebook at Flitcroft, and the intense desire to tear it out of the book as soon as she could and throw it out. But when Kate came back she knew she couldn’t do it, even if she still wanted to. But she didn’t want to.

It felt silly sometimes, but Lisa couldn’t get rid of the song. She hummed it under her breath sometimes at work, distracted. Anytime, really. 

“What is that?” Kate asked her as they cleared up the room after practice. 

“What?”

“Your tune. It sounds nice.”

Lisa shrugged and occupied herself with straightening the stack of papers she’d shove into her bag in a moment. Kate didn’t ask again, but smiled at her anyhow. Lisa added a line to the song when she got home. 

She decided to stop writing. A guilt gnawed at her when she flipped to the page that felt like betrayal and she knew it was time to stop. She tamped the feeling down, but still hummed the song, unable to let it go and unable to stop the warmth it brought to her chest.   
  


Frankie had a way of finding out all her secrets, so it should have been no surprise to find her sprawled on the couch, reading through her notebook. Lisa hoped against hope that she hadn’t made it to the end yet. 

“Mum,” Frankie said by way of greeting, “Did you write this song for Kate?”

Lisa shook her head and tried to act nonplussed. “No, of course not. And give that back,” she scolded, pulling the book from Frankie and shutting it in a way she hoped seems definite. 

“Why is it called, ‘K’ then?”

“Maybe I didn’t feel like giving it a proper name yet. It’s better than calling it ‘X’. Anyway, you need to learn to respect people’s privacy.”

“You so wrote it for Kate,” Frankie smirked. “I’m gonna go do homework now,” she added, trotting up the stairs and leaving Lisa below, mortified but somehow relieved. At least she wasn’t angry.

If Lisa had been under any illusions Frankie would leave well enough alone, she would have been wrong. At the next practice, Kate asked her about the notebook and about songs she’d been working on. She mentions  that song by name. 

“Frankie said you had loads of songs. And that you name them by letter? She said letter K seemed like a particularly good one.”

“Don’t put too much stock in it. They’re just notes, really.”

“Well, maybe we can have a look?” Kate prodded gently. Lisa couldn’t bear to tell her no, not when she was being so sincere, and not when she was touching Lisa’s arm so warmly.

The cat came tearing forcefully out of the bag when Kate read the song. Lisa panicked, tried to say that it’s nothing, realized she should have just cut that page out when she had the chance. She felt helpless as Kate read, her brow furrowed and lips set.  _Kate hates it_.  Lisa felt the bubbling of the same disappointment and self-pity she felt on the coach to London crossing out Kate’s lines. 

Kate looked up at her once she'd finished, her brow still knit, as though she was teasing out a riddle. “Is it about me?”

Lisa had always been a terrible liar and so she nodded, but only once, as though it tempered her feelings in any way (it didn't). Kate stood from the table and hugged her around the shoulders and Lisa’s heart broke like a silent dam. She accepted the hug and the diplomatic let down with as much grace as she could muster, willing herself to just face facts already. 

But then Kate kissed her cheek, near the corner of her mouth, and her heart soared. She let Kate move her mouth incrementally closer to her own, until they were kissing gently mouth to mouth. Kate felt soft and warm. She let Kate pull back, and nod to her, then leave without a world. Left alone in her own kitchen, Lisa wasn't even really sure it had happened at all. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments always make me happy!


End file.
